


"Joy to the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea, Joy to You and Me"

by emansil



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, M/M, janus thickey ward
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 05:07:31
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17419637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emansil/pseuds/emansil
Summary: Neville and Draco enjoy Christmas morning with Neville’s parents. Afterwards they have their own Christmas traditions of their own to follow.





	"Joy to the Fishes in the Deep Blue Sea, Joy to You and Me"

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by Ruth, who helps me out more than I ever deserve. Thank you as always. This is a new pairing for me, but I found them extremely compelling to write.
> 
> Disclaimer: Harry Potter characters are the property of J.K. Rowling and Bloomsbury/Scholastic. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Draco took a final glance in the mirror. Today was a very important day and he wanted to look his best. Assured that no improvements could be made he grabbed his winter scarf and black leather gloves from off the top of his bureau and made his way downstairs. His wait he knew would not be long. Grabbing his winter coat from the hall closet, he took a deep fortifying breath and waited.

Terror and joy fought within him as he waited by the floo. Neville would be arriving soon and together they would travel to their destination. Draco’s flat in London was a lot closer to the Janus Thickey Ward than Neville’s cottage along the Welsh border. Neville wanted, actually wanted Draco to meet his parents. Him, Draco Malfoy—ex Death Eater, was going to meet the parents of Neville Longbottom—War Hero. 

They would be spending Christmas morning with Neville’s parents, which made Draco beside himself with happiness. Everyone knew what meeting the boyfriend’s parents meant. He and Neville were legit. They were a couple, a real couple, and Neville wanted those he cared the most about to meet one another. Hearing Neville tell him that Draco was the first person he had ever wanted to meet his parents had caused Draco’s heart to swell with happiness, and absolute terror.

He was terrified because, what if they remembered that it was his aunt that had tortured them to the point of long-term insanity and had put them in St Mungo. And that it was Draco’s father who had been the most second most important person in the Death Eater army that had sanctioned the torture. Even more so, he was terrified that he would not understand what they were saying, and that would hurt Neville’s feelings so much. That was the last thing Draco would ever want to do.

Draco also had his own reasons for feeling horribly conflicted about the upcoming day. His own father, Lucius was also a long-term guest of St Mungo’s. Years of imprisonment in Azkaban combined with decades of alcohol abuse and Lucius’ own feelings of remorse and regret had created mental and emotional breakdowns in Lucius’s mind. He often was confused and lost.

Adding to all of those other emotions was the fact that after enjoying Christmas breakfast and time with Neville’s parents, he and Neville would stop at their favourite Thai restaurant, Thai Orchid for their own traditional Christmas dinner. Their first Christmas together had them discovering that neither of them enjoyed the traditional Christmas feast and family gatherings. The emphasis on family made them each feel the lack in their own.

They had instead opted for Spicy Green Papaya Salad and Red Curry for Draco, while Neville enjoyed the Spicy Beef Salad and Fried Basil and Pork, with huge bowls of Jasmine rice to share. Eating off of one another’s plates, they had stuffed their faces. Returning home, they’d collapse on the sofa, and curled up together followed a much needed nap. Waking, they had shagged on that same sofa and shared dessert; combining the two in a delectable and deviant feast of lust and gluttony. The rest of the evening spent listening to Christmas music, while wrapping their Boxing Day gifts for each other. Thus their own Christmas tradition had been borne. This would be their third Christmas to celebrate in the same way.

Today Draco planned on making that a more permanent, as in a lifetime, tradition. Reaching into his coat pocket he felt the small box, he had put in there earlier. The ring that Druella, his mother’s mother had given to Cygnus Black, Draco’s grandfather on the evening of their betrothal rested against a square of cotton batting. He would present it to Neville when the time was right, when he got up the nerve. There was a fear that Neville could say no. What if he either wasn’t ready to settle down, or wasn’t willing to commit to Draco? It was a possibility. It was always a possibility, even if Draco’s heart told him Neville felt the same as he. 

 

****

 

When they arrived at St Mungo’s, Neville held his hand while they waited for the Healer to bring Neville’s parents from their room. Seconds later he felt Neville nudge him. He looked up to see the softest smile on his boyfriend’s face and his eyes looking down the corridor. Shuffling more than actually walking, were two people that Draco would have been able to recognise anywhere as Neville’s parents. The woman’s eyes appeared overlarge in her thin face, as if they belonged to someone else. But Draco knew them as Neville’s eyes. While the skin on the man’s face was haggard as if from too many sleepless nights or nights filled with nightmares he couldn’t escape. Neville too, had nightmares that haunted his sleep. They both did.

As they grew closer Draco noted there were little or no signs of recognition. That was when he knew that they had no idea who he was, or even who the man standing next to him was.

Horrible guilt washed over Draco. This was the work of his crazed bitch of an aunt. She and others like her had done this, had destroyed this family. The family of the man he loved. What was he thinking? Neville couldn’t possibly forgive him; he could never love Draco. He had to get out of there; Neville deserved better than him.

He turned to go. A hand reached out and closed around his wrist. Afraid of what he’d see, Draco turned back around. Neville smiled that sweet, sweet loving smile at him and said only. "Stay." But his eyes said so much more. They said: I love you. I want you here. It’s okay. You’re my family now, you belong here with me.

Draco paused and in his own silence he echoed Neville’s thoughts and words. Pushing his panic and anguish back down, Draco nodded and returned back into Neville’s personal space. The space reserved for lovers and family. 

Once the two had arrived at Neville and Draco’s side, Draco looked at Neville to see how this affected him, but Neville’s expression of happiness looked no different than it had before, except maybe just the slightest amount of additional sadness. Neville reached out his arm and pulled Draco into him. Standing side by side, he said proudly, "Mum, Dad I’d like to meet my boyfriend, Draco Malfoy."

Draco started. Had he seen correctly? Was that a smile, brief but real, that he just saw flash across Neville’s mum’s face? And had his father just looked up in interest at the word boyfriend?

"And Draco," Neville continued seemingly unaware that anything untoward had just happened, "Draco, this is my mum and dad, Frank and Alice Longbottom."

Draco nodded and smiled and stretched out his hand to shake. Neville’s dad returned the gesture, but his mum just smiled vacantly at the two of them. A small sigh escaped from Neville and when Draco looked up at him, he wore an expression of acceptance. And profound love. 

Neville soon rallied, though. "Come on in, let’s grab a table. Oh look, how pretty the decorations are," he said. The walls were covered with handmade drawings and construction paper cut outs of candy canes, and stars, Christmas trees and Father Christmas, snowmen and reindeer. One or two of them were really well done, but most appeared to be of early primary grade level. One of the ones of Father Christmas looked suspiciously like some of his father’s art. Lucius had always been an extremely talented artist.

Draco felt a hand to his elbow and realised that Neville was still talking. "I’m going to get us some tea. Should I get some of the food the staff has provided as well? I intended on making some homemade Christmas biscuits, but time got away from me," he said bustling around and pouring four cups of tea from the mechanized tea canister on the long linoleum counter.

"I was able to get some extra special ones from Marks and Spencer’s," Neville continued, opening up several small boxes of gourmet specialty biscuits. "I remembered that ginger seemed to be a favourite of yours. Here you go, Mum." He handed plates around to them all and put the cups of tea in front of their places. A small pot of cream, saucer of lemons and bowl of sugar cubes completed the breakfast tableau. 

Over the next hour or so, Neville reminisced about his childhood with his parents and with Draco, or rather more accurately he talked with Draco while his parents sat at the table and nibbled on expensive gourmet cookies and drank over-steeped tea while they busied themselves with arts-and crafts, hoping to add to the already brightly coloured decorations that surrounded the room. 

"You know what I remember most about when I was younger, before I went to Hogwarts was Gran and her love of Muggle music, especially the ones from the late sixties and early seventies. You would have been just a baby or maybe a toddler then, Dad. She loved to play this song about a bullfrog named Jeremiah. We had more fun with that song," he said with a laugh.

Both Neville’s parent looked up at his laughter and laughed along with him. Draco doubted they had any idea what they were laughing at.

"But it was the chorus that she could really belt out. She’d hold my hands in hers and we would dance about the house, spinning around in circles. We would laugh and sing and laugh some more, spinning all the time. It was the only thing that stopped her from being so sad, and let’s face it, occasionally grumpy." Neville began to sing softly under his breath, ‘joy to the world, all the boys and girls.’" He picked up a small jar of glitter and shook it out over the small mound of cotton balls he’d pasted on a pale pinkish circle. Father Christmas’ beard was now sparking and shiny. ’Joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea,’ Neville sang as he adjusted the pasted on beard. ’Joy to you and me.’

Draco grimaced and laughed softly. Neville was a wonderful person in so many ways, and Draco loved him completely, but Draco doubted there was a bucket to be found that would allow Neville to attempt to carry a tune in it.

It was then he heard it. The irregular but constant thumping of someone with a rubber tipped cane entering the room. He stilled and waited with bated breath. His father was here. Would he recognize Draco? And would the meeting be pleasant or disastrous?

Draco must have made a noise or a facial expression of some type, because Neville stopped his singing and looked at him closely. "You okay?" he asked.

Draco swallowed and pasted on a smile. "Yes, of course, I’m fine. I was just enjoying your fine voice" He grinned back at his boyfriend. A thrill went through him. Boyfriend, Draco felt like a teenager with his first beau. 

Neville leaned over and kissed him softly on the edge of his mouth then return to cutting and pasting and singing. This time, his voice was even louder and the words more distinct.

Unexpectedly, the chair next to Draco was pulled out and a man—his father Lucius—sat down next to him. "I know that song. I used to love that song, even if it was," here he leaned close to Draco lowering his voice, "a Muggle song. My father used to hate when I sang it. Here’s not here now, is he?" Lucius worriedly glanced around the room, as if he feared Abraxus would suddenly appear and chastise him.

"No, Father. He’s not here," Draco answered.

Lucius looked with confusion at Draco. "Do I know you? You look like me. Are we related?" As he was talking, Lucius reached for the blue and green and construction paper. "Can I play too? I want to make things. Can I have a pair of scissors?" he asked Neville, then asked Draco, "who are these people? Do we know them? Are they the right sort?" Picking up the rounded tipped scissors he began to cut very carefully, the tip of his tongue sticking out of the corner of his mouth. "I can cut good. See, I’m very careful with the scissors," he rambled on, clearly forgetting the questions he had just asked Draco. 

Tears started to well in Draco’s eyes. He felt Neville’s hand squeeze his thigh above his knee in understanding. Draco squeezed his in return and wiped at his eyes. They then grinned at each other and returned to their task, munching on Christmas biscuits and drinking cup after cup of tea while the other families around them enjoyed their own Christmas traditions and celebrations.

Together the two of them began to sing softly, just the chorus as he joined in the craft making. Soon enough Frank had begun to hum also. Alice caught a few of the words and sang them out loud, but it was Lucius, Draco’s elegant and arrogant and previously oh so powerful father who sang along with them, matching them word for word.

 

****

 

Draco hugged his father goodbye and accepted with joy the blue star and the green Christmas tree, both covered in not yet dry paste and glitter of all shades that soon covered his charcoal grey trousers and pale royal blue cashmere jumper, while Neville accepted his own handmade gifts from his parents, an assortment of coloured fishes of different sizes and shapes. Hands full of gifts and leftover biscuits; they walked down to the lift and out the door.

"Do you mind if we walk a ways?" Draco asked as Neville turned to head for the floo. "It’s a nice day, a bit cold, but nice. I’ve something I’d like talk to you about." They stopped just outside the door and shrunk their gifts and leftovers down to more manageable size and slipped them into their jacket pockets. 

Neville looked at him softly and took his hand. "I’d love to walk with you."

Draco stuck his hand in his other pocket his other hand swinging along with Neville’s. There was something in is his pocket. Taking it between his thumb and forefinger, he pulled it out.

As they had been saying good-bye, Neville’s mum had stuck a small square of paper in his hand that he’d stuck in his pocket without looking at it. Pulling it out now, he examined it trying to decipher what it was exactly; it looked like a candy wrapper of some type.

Draco felt more than heard Neville sudden stop and sharp intake of breath. "Oh my god, I can’t believe it," Neville’s voice quavered.

Draco turned to him. What was going on? Tears streamed down Neville’s face but he was smiling, laughing even. "My mum approves. She likes you. That’s her way of saying she enjoyed her time with you. She gives me one every time I come."

The sun chose that moment to come out from behind the clouds and bathed them in warm golden sun light "Fuck, I was going to do this more properly and in a warmer place, but I can’t wait another moment." Neville said as he lowered himself to one knee. "Draco Malfoy, I love you and want us to spend the rest of our lives together. Will you marry me? I don’t have a ring yet, but we can always pick one out together— I mean…" he stopped and frowned at Draco, clearly confused by his boyfriend’s behaviour.

Draco had started laughing at the moment Neville had dropped to his knees. It had only increased as Neville had kept talking. Reaching into his pocket, Draco pulled out a small jeweler’s box. He fell to his knees and placed the ring that meant so much to Draco’s family on Neville’s finger. "I hope this one will do. And yes, the answer is yes, a thousand times yes."


End file.
